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Fiery Union Pacific Train Crash in Oklahoma Kills Three

Three Union Pacific train crew
members were killed on
June 24, 2012 when two freight trains
collided head-on and burst into flames in the panhandle of Oklahoma. The fatal
Union Pacific train crash occurred 10:08 a.m. on Sunday morning near
the town of Goodwell, which is roughly 300 miles northwest of Oklahoma City.

Officials from the National
Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) are currently gathering data to figure out
what caused the trains to crash. The Safety Board's preliminary findings show
that the train signals were working properly at the time of the crash. It is
unclear why one of the trains failed to pull off onto a side track prior to the
crash, leading Federal Railroad Administration official to speculate that human
error might have caused the head-on collision. NTSB officials will also be
looking at phone records of both train crews to make certain that no one was
distracted by mobile devices.

Each train had two crew members
-- an engineer and a conductor -- onboard. Authorities say engineers Dan Hall
and John Hall were killed in the crash, along with conductor Brian Stone. The
other conductor, Juan Zurita, was able to jump off his train shortly before the
collision and was virtually unharmed in the incident. The bodies of the three
victims were sent to the medical examiner's in Oklahoma City on Tuesday.

According
to the Associated Press, the NTSB will likely release
a preliminary report in a couple of weeks, and it may take upwards of a year
for them to finish their final report.

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